A small aircraft of Kingfisher Airlines with 24 passengers on board on a flight to Hyderabad got stuck on the runway at the airport in Bengaluru on Thursday night while preparing for take-off after its nosewheel hit a jackal, which strayed into the area.

All the passengers are safe and evacuated, but the nosewheel was damaged and the turbo-prop ATR aircraft (flight no IT 2427) slid on its belly, airport sources said.

There were no reports of injuries to any passenger in the incident which halted movement of flights in and out of Bengaluru as the runway was blocked by the stranded aircraft.

The sources said the plane's nosewheel hit the jackal as it rolled into the runway for readying to take off around 10 pm.

As the jackal got entantled in the nosewheel, the pilot applied the brake, jamming the landing gear of the aircraft, they said.

Efforts were on to tow the plane away from the runway to allow resumption movement of flights.